Due to an aging phenomenon continuing around the world, Korea is predicted to become an aged society where the percentage of people over 65 years old is 14% or more of the total population by 2018. Since an increase in aging population means an increase in a percentage of population having chronic diseases or deteriorated biological functions, anti-aging industries, for example, a pharmaceutical industry, a functional food industry, a cosmetic industry, and the like, for satisfying the needs for healthy life and improving health of old-aged people are expected to be developed.
Further, in middle-aged people, there is growing demand for improving various biological indices associated with aging before they got too old, and there is growing desire to live in a healthier and more youthful state. Further, since in terms of gender distribution, the proportion of women participating in economical and social activities has gradually increased, there is a large need to develop anti-aging materials and products for women, and among them, a demand for a product of which scientific efficacy is clearly proven has gradually increased.
In order to satisfy the demand for the anti-aging product as described above, there is a need to understand main features in aged tissue and cells and to seek a method for alleviating the aging. As the main feature in cells configuring aged tissue or organs, there is a decrease in intracellular anti-oxidant activity for protecting cells from oxidative stress and/or a rapid decrease in autophagy activity. As the intracellular anti-oxidant activity and/or the autophagy activity is decreased, cell viability and activity are rapidly decreased, such that morphological aspects of the aging appear, thereby leading to cell aging and metabolic diseases such as neurodegenerative diseases, type 2 diabetes, or the like.
Autophagy means a mechanism to regenerate energy and remove damaged materials by decomposing aged or damaged materials and organelles in cells when an energy source in the cells is exhausted or stress factors in cells are excessively generated, and enables maintenance of normal cells. Recently, in various studies, it was reported that as the aging has proceeded or been accelerated, an autophagy activity in cells has rapidly decreased. On the contrary, in the case of suppressing the autophagy activity, aged mitochondria, misfolded proteins, or the like, are excessively accumulated in cells, such that free radicals and oxidative stress in the cells are increased, thereby resulting in increasing apoptosis and promoting aging.
Further, in mitochondria, while an energy generation process is performed, reactive oxygen species are formed as by-products, and lipid peroxide, a lipid peroxy radical, peroxynitrite, or the like, is formed by external stress such as ultraviolet light, drugs, materials taken into the body, and stimulation of environmental contamination factors, or the like, thereby applying a wide oxidative stress. These oxidative stress products are significantly unstable and have high reactivity with surrounding materials to significantly strongly bind to proteins, lipids, deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA), or the like, in cells, and cause various denaturation, which results in causing fetal problems.
An example of a material capable of increasing the intracellular anti-oxidant activity may include anti-oxidant materials such as vitamins, glutathione, coenzyme Q10, and the like, or anti-oxidant proteins such as catalase, superoxide dismutase, glutathione-dependent peroxidase, peroxiredoxin, and the like. However, these anti-oxidant materials according to the related art have problems in that they may exhibit an excellent reactive oxygen scavenging activity in-vitro and in the blood, but these anti-oxidant materials may rather increase formation of reactive oxygen in cells depending on the concentration. Further, proteins, lipid, mitochondria, and the like, denatured by oxidative stress may be rapidly removed by activating autophagy, a recycling mechanism to decompose aged materials and organelles in cells, such that an environment in which cells may live in a healthier state may be provided.
In order to remove this oxidative stress generated in cells and recover health of an individual, tissue, and cells, the anti-oxidant activity and autophagy activation in the cells are significantly important. Therefore, in order to basically solve problems of the anti-oxidant materials according to the related art and provide an excellent anti-aging effect, there is a need to develop a material having an excellent effect of inducing autophagy activation while increasing expression of anti-oxidant proteins in cells to increase the anti-oxidant activity.